Dubuque Telegraph Herald, IA
Loras hosts a sale with products from artisan groups in 38 developing countries
By MARY NEVANS-PEDERSON TH staff writer
Shoppers examined lacquered river rocks with delicate paintings of fish from Vietnam, red leather, cat-shaped purses from India, sturdy papyrus and banana fiber baskets from Uganda and organic coffees from around the world Tuesday in Ballroom D of the Alumni Campus Center at Loras College.
While they purchased jewelry and handicrafts for themselves and toys and gifts for others, they were ensuring better lives for Third World families.
For the fourth year, Loras is hosting a fair trade sale featuring products from Ten Thousands Villages, a nonprofit organization that works with a global network of 130 artisan groups in 38 developing countries. The organization ships the artisans’ hand-crafted products to sales in the United States and Canada. Several local churches and businesses carry their fair trade items.
“Buying fair trade gifts shows the best spirit of Christmas — a just way of buying and selling goods where you know the artist has received a living wage,” said Dave McDermott, coordinator of the Loras College Father Ray Herman Peace and Justice
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The Loras Fair Trade Festival continues today and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Alumni Campus Center Ballroom D. Nearly all of the sale’s proceeds go back to the nonprofit fair trade retail organization Ten Thousand Villages.
Center, which sponsors the annual sale.
Yvette Andersen, 19, helped set up the sale. On her fourth tour of the sale tables, the religious studies major picked up a carved dragon incense burner for a gift and ground coffee for herself.
“These people take plenty of time carving and painting these things, and they should be paid well for it,” she said.
Carol Oberfoell works at Loras and starts her holiday shopping at the sale every year.
“They are such unique gifts and they use raw materials in so many of them,” said Oberfoell, examining colorful clay Nativity sets from Peru.
“Everything is a labor of love by these people because they put so much into it,” Oberfoell said. She picked out an elephant carved from alabaster for a granddaughter who collects them.
“It’s a lot better to give (the money) to artists who really need it to keep their families living a normal life,” she said.